


the calm before the aftermath

by nirav



Series: a brighter forecast, where new winds will blow [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9021343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: progress comes in fits and starts





	1. all that's here is what you left behind

Two weeks slide by, and Lucy’s arm itches inside the cast constantly and she follows Sandra around the DEO until she’s granted another x-ray.  Two weeks, and Sandra condemns her to another three in the cast.  Two weeks, and Lucy has taken over one of the operations rooms at the DEO and Susan Vasquez to aggregate and organize their data on Cadmus.  Four weeks, and Lucy’s team working with the DEO has identified more Cadmus sites and operatives than they had in the last eighteen months.   

Four weeks, and Lucy has a set of keys to Alex’s apartment and hasn’t slept in the guest room once.  Four weeks, and Alex’s body has already adjusted to Lucy’s presence in her bed.  

“Ugh,” Lucy groans out, slumping down and dropping her head against the back of Alex’s couch.  The shift draws a disgruntled sound from Alex, whose feet are propped up in Lucy’s lap, and she lowers the file in front of her face just enough to glare at Lucy.  Lucy rolls her head over to face Alex and offers the file in her hands.  “Trade with me.  This one is all sciencey, I don’t know what it says.”

Alex rolls her eyes and switches papers with Lucy.  “This is like biology 101,” she says, shaking her head.  “Seriously?”

“I didn’t major in nerd, sorry.”  Lucy sticks her tongue out and snaps the papers in her hand sharply.  

Alex pauses and settles the file in her lap, propping her temple on her fist and frowning at Lucy.  “What _did_ you study?”

“Minor in righteous feminist indignation, major in disproving nepotism,” Lucy says with a smirk.  “The general was always stopping by when I was at the academy.  It was what you might call a significant problem.”

“Your father was a problem?  I’m shocked,” Alex drawls.  She digs her heel into Lucy’s thigh briefly.  “But what did you study? I know you did grad school at Harvard, but I don’t even know what you _can_ major in at West Point.”

“Operations research studies.”  Lucy wiggles her thigh and pokes at the sole of Alex’s foot, tapping in rhythm to the music playing from the speakers.

“Stop that.”  Alex yanks her foot back and digs her toes into Lucy’s ribs.  “What is operations research?”

Lucy shrugs and waves one hand around aimlessly.  “Everything.  Decision making in complex systems.  Lots of probability modeling and systems engineering, no fluffy useless nonsense like _biology_.”  She sticks her tongue out again.  

“Right, you totally didn’t major in nerd at all,” Alex says, poking at Lucy’s ribs again.  She drops her file onto the coffee table and stretches back over the arm of the couch with a yawn.  

“You done?”

“I need a break,” Alex says through a stretch.  She scoots closer to Lucy and takes the files out of her hands as well, settling them on the coffee table.  “So do you.”

“I don’t--”

“Yep.”  Alex raises an eyebrow and tugs at the collar of Lucy’s t-shirt.  Lucy leans into the pull and shifts abruptly, pushing Alex back and hovering over her, weight half on her elbows and half on Alex.  She pauses, raising an eyebrow at Alex to question how her ribs feel; Alex nods and pulls at Lucy’s t-shirt impatiently.

“Well,’ she says, skimming her fingers along the outside of Alex’s thigh. “If you insist.”  She skips past the waistband of Alex’s sweatpants and slides her hand up along Alex’s side, fingertips blindly finding the freshly healed shotgun wounds that speckle Alex’s skin.

“That’s what I thought,” Alex says, hooking a leg around Lucy’s hip and pulling her down for a kiss.

Minutes slip by, gentle and lazy,  the music continuing to play in the background and Lucy settled comfortably on top of Alex. Lucy pulls back enough for Alex to yank her t-shirt over her head, and the balcony door  blows open and Kara flies in.

“Hey-- oh my God!” Kara half-shrieks, stumbling into the counter with her hand slapped over her eyes.  

“What the--” Alex nearly dumps Lucy off the couch in a scramble to sit up, and Lucy flails and barely catches herself with her uninjured arm.  “Kara!  What are you--what--”

“I knocked!” Kara says loudly, cape yanked up to cover her eyes.  “I called you both and you didn’t answer and I knocked and _oh my God_ I need to go bleach my eyes.”

“Jesus,” Alex mutters, straightening her shirt and handing Lucy’s to her to put on, pushing a hand through her hair.  Lucy pulls her shirt back on, looking back and forth between Alex and Kara.  “You can look now,” Alex says petulantly.

Kara lowers her cape a half an inch and peeks over it, and Alex rolls her eyes and huffs out a sigh.

“What’s so urgent?”

“I just-- wait, so are you two dating?”

“Kara,” Alex says sharply.  

“Right, sorry, mission stuff--”

“What?” Lucy straightens her shirt and scowls at the cast.  “Cadmus mission?”

“Yeah, Vasquez found a lead on something, something big, she needs you to--”

“Two minutes,” Lucy says shortly.  She hurries to Alex’s bedroom to change, the door banging shut behind her.  Kara blinks, staring after her for a moment before turning back to Alex.

“You and Lucy-- I thought she was staying in the guest room-- what--”

“It’s-- I don’t know,” Alex mumbles, rubbing at her eyes.  “I’m going to change.  We can meet you at the DEO.”

“Alex,” Kara says, superspeeding around to block her path to the bedroom and settling her hands on Alex’s shoulders.  “You do know that if you and Lucy are together then I’m going to be happy for you, right?”

“We’re not together,” Alex says with a sigh.

“Okay, I realize I don’t know a _ton_ about lesbian sex but that really looked--”

“Oh my God, please stop,” Alex whispers loudly, slapping a hand over her mouth.  “No, I’m just not sure what we are.  We haven’t talked about it, and she’s going to go back out fighting Cadmus soon and disappear for who knows how long so I’m just… I don’t know.  Not thinking about it.”

“Alex,” Kara says softly.  

“Not now.” Alex shakes her head.  “I just-- let’s get to work.  We can figure out my crap later.”

“Okay,” Kara says after a moment.  She pulls Alex in for a hug.  “I’ll meet you at the DEO.”  She whooshes out of the apartment, and Alex takes a deep breath, lets it out, takes another one, and then pushes the bedroom door open.

Lucy has her phone sandwiched between her ear and shoulder as she yanks a pair of jeans up over her hips, listening intently.  Alex moves around her quietly, finding clothes and dressing and pausing to help Lucy with her belt when the cast gets in the way.  Lucy mouthes _“Thank you”_ and pulls the phone away long enough to press a kiss to her cheek before focusing back on her call.

They’re out the door and halfway to the DEO before Lucy is off the phone.

“So what’s the word?”

“Not sure, entirely, but one of the analysts noticed a pattern in the comm data we’d been tracking.  Most of the Cadmus intel we’ve found has been encrypted and scrambled on one of a handful of channels, but they think they tied a communication pattern to a channel that’s completely dark.”

“Dark as in no one is using it?”

“Or someone is using it and we can’t see it.”

Alex nods, hands tucked into her pockets.  “So they’re using a communication channel and have an encryption model on it that makes it look empty?”

“Sounds like.”  Lucy takes a deep breath.  Her hair flops down into her face and she blows it out, shaking her head and trying to pull it back.  She curses quietly when her fingers fumble inside the cast, and Alex pulls her to a stop, taking the hair tie from her and gently pulling her hair back into a ponytail.  

“Thanks,” Lucy says quietly.  She pushes up on her toes and presses a kiss to Alex’s mouth.  “Now let’s go catch some bad guys.”  She hooks her fingers into Alex’s pants pocket and tugs, pulling her along into the DEO building.

 

* * *

 

The operations room Lucy’s team has commandeered for the past month is humming with a new level of energy when they arrive.  Lucy is immediately routed over to the makeshift command center built up by her analysts.  Alex hangs back, nodding at Vasquez and then gesturing out of the room towards her office.

Susan follows her to her office, shutting the door and standing at attention as Alex leans back against her desk.

“So what’s the deal?”

“I assume you’ve been briefed?”

“Yeah, but just high level.  What are the implications?”

“Likely recon, potentially moving forward with tactical action.  I put a team on standby, just in case.”

“Right,” Alex says, taking a deep breath.  “Get in fast, catch them off guard.”

“Yes ma’am.”  Susan’s posture breaks momentarily from at attention to uncertain, and Alex shakes her head.

“Keep the team on standby, give Lane’s team whatever they need.”

“Should we assume Supergirl will be part of any tactical mission?”

“No.”  Alex sighs.  “I don’t want the director in on it, either, if we can avoid it.  Or Mon-El.  They’re at the highest risk in a full assault on Cadmus, and we can’t risk them.”

“Yes ma’am.”  

Alex gestures vaguely towards the door and Susan nods and leaves, and Alex rubs at her eyes.  It’s going to be a long night.

 

* * *

 

Two hours in, Alex is buried in work in her lab with the engineering team, working to improve their communication technology to withstand whatever Cadmus may throw at them to cut them off, when there’s a sudden flurry of movement out of Lucy’s team.  Alex pauses, peering out through the window to where the military portion of Lucy’s team is hurrying to the weapons bay. The standby DEO team is checking their own weapons.  On the balcony above command, Kara and J’onn are staring down at the mustering soldiers, displeasure at having to stay benched obvious.

Lucy is nowhere to be seen.

Alex hands the work off to one of the other engineers and sets off for the room Lucy’s team had been using.  Vasquez is still there, wired in and setting up tactical communications and imagery with the logistic officers; she points silently towards the medical bay.

“Goddammit,” Alex mutters, stalking over to the medical bay.  Sure enough, Lucy is there with one of the nurses who’s about to take a handsaw to the cast.  “What-- are you _serious_?”

“Alex, we found them,” Lucy says.  “We found them, we tied that black hole channel to a massive drain on a power grid in New Mexico that links to a bunker, we’ve got satellites on it pulling data on the structure already and we have to go now, the encryption is rotating and we only have about 24 hours before we lose the--”

“Your arm is broken!”  Alex yanks the plug for the saw out of the wall and glares at the nurse until he scampers away.  “Are you serious?”

“I can put it in a splint, it’s fine, just let me--” Lucy grabs for the saw, and Alex jerks it back out of her reach.

“No, you can’t, because it hasn’t healed yet,” Alex snaps.  “And you’re just going to, what, take my best tac team to New Mexico and disappear?”

Lucy freezes, hand still reaching out for the saw, and stares at Alex.  “I have to-- Alex, I found them, all of them.  Or at least a lot of them.  We’ve never been able to follow this many of comm threads to one place.  I _have_ to go.”

“You and your broken arm have to go on a military raid on no sleep in the middle of the night with a broken arm?”

“I’m not sending my team in alone--”

“No one else on your team has a broken arm!  You can run this from tactical just as effectively and you know it.”

“These are the people who kidnapped your father, Alex, I can’t just let them--”

“Because it always has to be you, right?  Carry all of this on your own and stop the bad guys by yourself.  Saving the day and then vanishing for two years again.”

“Are you serious?” Lucy says slowly.  “You want to talk about this now?”

“Yeah, well, what happened the last time you left ?” Alex grinds her teeth when her ribs-- still healing, still tender, still dragging her arms in tight and breaths careful-- ache at the tension leaking through her body.  She takes a deep breath and plugs the saw back in.  “Give me your arm,” she adds quietly.

Lucy holds her wrist out, jaw clenched tight, and looks determinedly anywhere but at Alex as the saw cuts through the cast.  Neither of them speaks as the cast falls away and Alex manipulates her wrist gently, testing the strength and flexibility.  Lucy clenches her jaw at the weak fist she can form as Alex retrieves a splint from the supply cabinet and settles it around her wrist securely.  

“Try to avoid any punching anything if you can,” she says.  “Elbow strikes only from this side, and don’t shoot with it if you don’t have to.  The recoil is enough to undo most of the recovery.”

“Alex,” Lucy says.  

“No, you’re right.”  Alex takes a step back, hands on her hips, and clears her throat.  “It’s past time to take them down and this is the best opportunity that’s come up.  So be careful, and drop their asses.”

“You’re just as capable as everyone on this team and your ribs are almost completely healed, you could--”

“I can’t,” Alex says sharply.  “I _just_ put my family back together, I can’t-- not this time.  Not when I know that if I go, then Kara goes, and if we don’t-- it would ruin my parents.  I can’t.  I’ll work tactical with Vasquez from here.”

Lucy nods without meeting Alex’s eyes, focusing on her splinted wrist and flexing her fingers.  “Okay,” she says, speaking to her shoes.  “Okay.”

She flexes her fingers in the splint once more and takes a deep breath, looking up finally to meet Alex’s gaze.  Hesitation pulls on her movements when she steps forward, one hand moving towards Alex’s cheek, and Alex steps back out of reach.

“Be careful,” Alex says again, moving for the door.

“Alex, come on--”

“You’re not-- we haven’t been anything.  You don’t owe me anything.” Alex focuses on the doorknob and the way the skin over her knuckles goes white with her grip.  “We knew it was a bad idea anyways.”

“Alex, don’t--” Lucy starts.  Her radio crackles, one of the Rangers calling for her to come lead the team.  

“You should go,” Alex says, pulling the door open and clearing her throat.  She starts down the hallway, pushing her chin up and shoulders back.  Tactical is in the opposite direction from command as the weapons bay, and Lucy makes the turn five steps behind her.

“Alex,” Lucy says before she walks any further.  “Can you just--”

“I can’t, actually,” Alex says sharply, quietly, finally turning back to face her.  She takes a deep breath.  “You know where to find me.  I’ll be here when you get back.”

She turns back and leaves for tactical, not turning around until she’s almost inside.  Lucy’s already disappeared into the weapons bay.  Alex looks higher, and Kara is staring unabashedly at her, arms folder over her stomach.  Alex shakes her head and walks past the tactical team and to her office, shutting the door behind her.

She flops down into the chair behind her desk and drops her head into her hands, elbows on her knees and ribs still aching under the compression.  The door opens and shuts again, and she takes a deep breath around the pressure in her chest.  Kara wraps her up in a hug, solid and silent, until Alex can calm her breathing.

By the time Lucy’s team is halfway to New Mexico, Alex has made her way to tactical, voice steady and hands sure as she settles a comm into her ear and nods at Vasquez to start patching information through.

 

_once you leave me you were really gone_   
_give me something to remember you by_   
_all that's here is what you left behind_   
_slowly moving in the back of my mind_   
_(take a moment to remember me)_


	2. off the ledge throwing punches

_over the edge i can’t stop myself_  
_off the ledge throwing punches_  
_over the edge i can’t steer myself_

 

  
Lucy’s team has boots on the ground in New Mexico within an hour, and Alex drains her fourth cup of coffee in the DEO before announcing the acknowledgement.  Vasquez rattles off a series of coordinates to the telemetry team and twenty seconds later a satellite view pops up on the screen on the wall in front of Alex.

“I don’t like this,” Kara mutters, arms folded tightly over her stomach, pacing back and forth behind Alex.

The team comes into view on the monitors, black spots in the empty desert fanning out and moving in on an unassuming concrete bunker.  

“How’s it looking down there?” Alex doesn’t take her eyes off of the screen as she speaks.

A short confirmation rattles through the speakers and the tracking devices go online, red dots overlaying the black images in the satellite picture as the teams split and surround the building.  Half a dozen body camera feeds pop up on the smaller screens.  A distinctly Lucy-sized figure, overtly smaller than the rest but otherwise indistinguishable in black tactical gear, moves in cadence with the rest of her team.  

Kara stops pacing and stands at Alex’s back, tension radiating out of her shoulders.  Alex inhales slowly and forces her breathing to stay calm and measured.

“Okay,” Alex says.  She settles her hands on her hips and nods at Vasquez.  “Let’s do this.”

Hundreds of miles away, Lucy Lane nods inside her helmet at the sound of Alex’s voice, and it begins.

 

* * *

 

Alex’s stomach twists around itself, differently than it has since Lucy started cutting her cast off or when the team landed in New Mexico.  The raid has gone well, the team catching collections of suits and scientists off guard and tagging them with tranquilizers moving through the increasingly chaotic facility efficiently, taking down the security forces as they come.  Alex grinds her teeth together for long seconds as the dim light of the body cameras on the screen shows another Cadmus security officer dropping.

She pulls the comm out of her ear and moves over to stand at J’onn’s side.

“Something feels wrong,” she says softly.

“I know,” he rumbles.  “Pull a team together.  I’ll meet you--”

“No,” Alex says.  “I need you to keep Kara here.”

“Alex,” he starts.

“Please,” she says.  “Please just keep her here.  I can’t risk either of you.”

“But we can risk you?”  He folds his arms over his chest.  “Alex, you’re just as--”

“ _Please_ ,” she says again.  “You’re both at a higher risk in a Cadmus facility than the rest of us, and if anything happens my parents can’t handle losing both of us.”

“Alex,” he says again, mouth turning down, but she shakes her head and he sighs.  “Okay.”

“Thank you,” she says quietly.  She drops her comm into his hand and slips out of the room, closing the door softly behind her, leaving Kara standing anxiously behind Vasquez.

She’s on a plane in fifteen minutes with a team of soldiers.  The audio coming through her comms becomes more gunshots and less confirmed sedation of prisoners as they draw closer, and Alex sends a text to Kara.

_Don’t be mad at j’onn, i asked him to keep you there.  I love you._

She shuts her phone off and leaves it in the plane when they land.  The sun is just starting to rise at their backs, and she checks the buckle on her helmet, cocks her weapon, and leads the team in.

 

* * *

 

The Cadmus bunker is a mess.  Unconscious scientists with hands hastily ziptied litter the floors, with the occasional well-shod suited corporate types interspersed, suits and lab coats alike rumpled and punctured by tranquilizer darts.  Alex guides her team through, radioing ahead in an attempt to find Lucy’s team, but the comms stay quiet except for the occasional guidance from the DEO.

They’ve cleared the rest of the building by the time they round a corner and are stopped by an enormous steel door.  Alex squints at it, cocking her head to listen for anything nearby; there’s nothing to hear and she sends half of her team off to scout the area.

They come back empty handed, and Alex mutters out a curse.  “Break it down,” she says, jerking her head towards the door.  “Not like they don’t know we’re here.”

It takes more tries than she’d like for the door to fall, and a wave of bullets comes through it from the other side as soon as it does.  One of her soldiers takes a hit to the vest and drops, cursing violently and returning fire along with the rest of the team as she climbs to her feet and straightens her damaged vest.  Alex throws a flash bomb through the door and it’s enough to get them into the room.

It’s a hangar, small enough for a helicopter that’s already been disabled, one of the rotors flopping limply towards the floor.  A squad of Cadmus guards have taken shelter behind it, half of them guarding a collection of handcuffed soldiers lying facedown on the floor and the other half firing at Alex’s team.

Alex has numbers on her side and they move forward with attrition, soldiers taking hits and falling.  Some bounce back to their feet, and some don’t.  They make it across the hangar and pick off the guards, moving in a swarm around the helicopter.  

It comes to a point abruptly, one Cadmus guard left standing in front of a man in a suit.  His weapon stays locked on the row of handcuffed soldiers.  

“Hi there,” Alex says calmly, weapon steady against her shoulder.  “I’m in a bad mood, so maybe you could just give up now.”

“Drop your weapons,” the man in the suit says.  His hair is disheveled and one eye is swelling up under a bruise.  Alex glares at him, gun aimed at what she can see of his head behind the guard.  “Unless you want us to--”

One of Alex’s soldiers squeezes off a shot that clips the guard in the leg and Alex pulls the trigger.  Her bullet rips past the guard’s ear and into the man’s forehead, and they both fall, one dead and one bleeding violently.

“Clear the building,” she mutters, sending half the team off.  “And get radio contact with command, tell them we need a security team to hold the area and a ride home.”

She lowers her weapon and yanks her helmet off.  Her ribs pull under the weight of the vest, still not healed and probably cracked again.  

“Agent Danvers.”  It’s one of Lucy’s Rangers, sitting up on his heels, arms still ziptied behind his back.  He jerks his chin towards the figure at his side, smaller than the rest and not sitting up as the others do.

Alex shoves her weapon at one of the soldiers and drops down at Lucy’s side, cutting roughly though the zipties and rolling her over.   Her breathing is shallow, her skin flushed.  Alex lays her out on the floor gently, prying one of her eyes open and producing a flashlight to shine in it.  She rips the straps of Lucy’s vest free and pushes her shirt out of the way, revealing a vivid, dark bruise that’s spread all over her side.  Alex’s teeth grind together as she moves her hands gently along Lucy’s abdomen, pressing carefully.

Lucy groans, and Alex lets out a sharp breath.  “Hey,” she says quietly.  “What hurts?”

“I think I broke my arm,” Lucy mumbles.  She coughs and winces and smiles, blood leaking out of her lip at the movement.

“And your ribs, and maybe all of your internal organs, you moron,” Alex says, even as her hand presses against Lucy’s cheek for a brief moment, familiar and steady and gentle.  She cranes her head around to where her team is cutting free the rest of the soldiers.  “Assess for injuries and call a medical evac,” she says sharply before turning her focus back to Lucy.

She works the sleeve of Lucy’s shirt away from her wrist, not missing the way Lucy’s other hand grabs at her arm when she does.  “Yeah, that’s broken,” she says.  “You punched someone, didn’t you?”  

“It seemed like the right idea at the time,” Lucy says, grunting when Alex pulls the damaged splint off and restructures it into a makeshift version of itself.  “It was worth it.  I thought you couldn’t--”

“I made the right call,” Alex says tightly.  She yanks a set of zipties from her pocket and uses them to secure the splint on Lucy’s arm.  Lucy’s knuckles are bloody and bruised, and Alex pauses, running her fingers gently over the damage.  

“Who’s the knight in shining armor now?” Lucy smiles up at her, blood in her teeth and fingers wrapping around Alex’s hand.

 

_if i bend then i might not breathe_   
_i should think about giving in_   
_if i bend then it might be okay_


	3. we stay between the white lines

It’s not the end of Cadmus.  Winn and a team of analysts descend on the building and set to pulling all of the data they can out of the technology there.  The man Alex killed is identified as an advisor to a sitting senator, a quiet but continuous anti-alien force in the government, and the FBI pounces on the information, starting a series of coordinated raids on Capitol Hill.  It’s not the end of Cadmus, but it’s the beginning of the end, and for the moment, it’s enough for Alex.  Her family is together, and Cadmus is breaking.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” J’onn finds her on the DEO balcony, a glass of whiskey in hand and two fingers taped together in a crude splint.  She had waved the medical team off and taped them herself, unwilling to stay in the medical bay while Lucy and her team were treated.

“We’re not done yet,” she says with a shrug.  The whiskey swirls in the glass, catching and refracting the lights from the city, and she stares down into it.  “And to be honest I think Kara’s still planning on murdering me.”

“Well.”  He leans against the balcony, back to the city and eyes trained on her.  “The only thing that could hurt your sister more than kryptonite is if you were hurt.  She wants to protect you.”

“It was the right call.”

“Maybe.”  He raises an eyebrow at her.  “How’s Major Lane?”

“Broken ribs.  No internal bleeding.  Compound fracture to the radius and ulna.  I don’t think she’ll need surgery, but she’s going to be in that cast for a while.”

“That’s not what I meant,” J’onn says.  “I was there when the doctor confirmed all of that.  She was asking for you.”

Alex swallows half of the whiskey in one go.  

“Alex.”  His hands settle on the balcony railing and he carefully doesn’t look at her, allowing her the illusion of privacy.

“I can’t right now.”  Alex shakes her head and bites down on her lip.  “I can’t talk about this.”

“You’re allowed to be upset.” J’onn turns to rest his hands on her shoulders.  “But not because she made a poor tactical choice, because she didn’t.”

“She didn’t have to go with them,” Alex says into her whiskey.  “She was still healing.”

“You really think she would ever ask her team to go in without her?  Or that _you_ would send a team in without you?  Strike teams work because of trust, and that team works better even than ours do because they trust each other.”

Alex grumbles down at the whiskey and swallows the rest of it.  “Don’t be logical at me right now.”

“In that case, consider yourself on paid leave for two weeks,” he says flatly.  “Rest, and recover, and sort things out.  That’s an order.”

“I--”

“Direct.  Order.”  He glares down at her and points into the building.

“Fine,” Alex mumbles.  She huffs out a sigh and walks back inside, depositing her glass on an empty desk.  She takes the long, meandering way towards the medical bay, and has almost run out of detours to take when Kara appears in front of her.

“You realize now that you don’t ever get to tell me not to take risks, right?” she says, hands on her hips.

“Kara, it was too dangerous for you or J’onn,” Alex says, rubbing her hands over her face.

“Which one of us is bulletproof?”

“Which one of us does Cadmus categorically want to cut to pieces?” Alex challenges.  

“You could have died!” Kara says sharply.  

“I’m right here,” Alex says.  “Alive and well and I really can’t be in a fight with you _and_ Lucy right now, so can you please just-- be here?”

Kara’s shoulders soften, and she nods after a moment, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around Alex.  “I love you,” she says into Alex’s shoulder.

“I love you,” Alex mumbles, clinging too tight to Kara.  Her taped fingers ache under the pressure.  

“Also Eliza is going to probably yell at you,” Kara says, smile lightening her voice, and Alex groans.  “Now go see your girl.”

“She’s not my girl,” Alex says even as Kara propels her towards the medical bay.

“Yeah, sure,” Kara calls after her.  She flaps her hands dramatically at Alex.  “Hurry up so we can all go get food, I’m starving.”

Alex throws a glare and an eye roll back at her as she pushes through the doors to the medical bay.  It’s full, the two teams from New Mexico amounting to nearly thirty people, and she makes her way through the bay slowly, stopping to speak with each of the injured.  

“Max,” Alex says from the doorway, speaking to the Ranger who had pointed Lucy out to Alex in the bunker.  “How’re you doing?”

“Not bad,” he says, waving from his bed.  His wedding ring flashes in the fluorescent lights.  “Barely a scratch.”  He scoffs when Alex raises an eyebrow at the bandage above his knee, covering a stitched bullet hole.  

“Uh huh.”

“Could be worse,” he says with a shrug, the grin fading from his face.  “The major took one to the vest.  Close range.  Should've been my bullet.”

“Glad you’re okay,” Alex says after a long moment, arms folded tightly over her chest.

“Thanks for the assist, Agent Danvers,” he says, and she nods and shuts the door behind her.

It takes half an hour before she makes it to Lucy’s room.  By the time she does, it’s been nearly a day and a half since Kara interrupted them on Alex’s couch, and almost ten hours since they parted ways in the command center.

“Hey,”  Alex says quietly, shutting the door behind her.

Lucy doesn't say anything, biting down on the inside of her cheek and not moving from her spot on the medical bed.  There’s a fresh cast on her arm, and she’s changed into sweatpants and a DEO workout jacket.  She fiddles with the zipper, not meeting Alex’s eyes.  The cut on her lip is clean, a smaller split than the amount of blood had indicated, and she touches at it self consciously before tugging the zipper on her jacket higher.  Her knuckles are as damaged as the rest of her, broken skin disinfected and scrubbed until her hands are bright red.

“How are you feeling?”  Alex picks up Lucy’s broken arm and inspects the cast, moving onto her other hand and peering at the bruising and lacerations on her knuckles, straightening each of Lucy’s fingers gently.  Satisfied, she moves to unzip Lucy’s jacket; Lucy’s free hand flies up to cover the zipper and her forehead creases, mouth uncertain.  

“Sorry,” Alex says softly, pulling her hands back, palms up and out.  “I just want to check your ribs.  May I?”

Lucy nods after a moment, settling her hands at her side and allowing Alex to unzip the jacket and reveal a sports bra and Ace bandages wrapped around her ribcage.  Alex fiddles with the wrap, prodding gently at Lucy’s sides and clenching her jaw when Lucy winces. She glances at the x-rays on the lightboard and pushes out an annoyed sigh.

“These are too tight,” she says, wrinkling her nose as she removes the fasteners on the bandages.

“So that’s why I can’t breathe.”  Lucy finally speaks, quiet and tired, and Alex hums in agreement.  The bandages unravel in Alex’s hands, and she sets them aside and pushes gently against Lucy’s ribcage.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy says, looking somewhere past Alex’s shoulder.

Alex pauses, pulling her hands away.  “For what?”

Lucy shrugs and winces when her abdomen protests.  “I could have run this from tactical.  I should have.  You wouldn’t have gone into the field if I had.”  She bites down on the inside of her cheek and reaches, momentarily, for Alex’s hands and taped fingers, before pulling back.

“Maybe,” Alex says quietly.  “Maybe not.  From what I hear Max’s wife will appreciate you being there.”  

Lucy’s fingers press into the bed, enough to turn the red skin on her knuckles white.

“Take a deep breath,” Alex says after a moment.  Her hands settle back on Lucy’s skin, and Lucy manages to fill her lungs halfway before the cracks in her ribs protest.  She lets the breath out and Alex nods but doesn’t move her hands.  Her thumb absently moves back and forth along the line of Lucy’s ribcage, just above the edge of the bruising.  “I also owe you an apology,” she says after a moment.

“For what?”

“Well, for one, for being an asshole about you going on this mission.”  Alex sets to redoing the bandages, focusing on the movement of her hands.  “Since I turned around and did the exact same thing to Kara when I went after you.  I get why you didn’t want to send people in without you, and I get that injured you at 80% is still better than a new person on the team at 100%, so it was the right choice strategically.”  

Lucy’s chin ducks down, and Alex pauses for a moment before forging ahead.

“And for--” she cuts herself off, taking a deep breath.  “For saying that we aren’t something.  Or maybe not an apology, because maybe you also don’t think that we’re something, but I think we’re something, maybe, and I shouldn’t have said that--”

Lucy surges forward, disrupting Alex’s bandaging to kiss her.  It hurts, the cut in her lip tender, but she doesn't stop, pulling Alex as close as she can without hurting her ribs and kissing her until her lungs ache.

“So that’s a yes to something, right?” Alex mumbles when they come up for air.  Lucy’s holds tighter to Alex’s shirt and hooks her legs around Alex’s waist, and she rolls her eyes.  

“Something,” she confirms before kissing Alex again.

“So,” Alex breathes out after a moment, still close enough to share air and not pulling back.  “I like you.  And you like me.  So maybe we try to start fresh?  As something?”

“Are you asking me on a date, Agent Danvers?” Lucy scrapes her fingernails along Alex’s ribcage.  “I hope you don’t expect me to put out on the first date.”

Alex glances down at Lucy’s legs wrapped around her waist and the jacket that’s fallen off Lucy’s shoulders and Lucy’s hands pushing her shirt up and raises an eyebrow.  “Is that so?”

“Shut up and kiss me already, will you?” Lucy grumbles.  

 

_i'll raise another white flag so that_   
_we keep counting all the fresh starts we've had_   
_i'll fly another white flag over us_


End file.
